Computer Games
by CharityLambkin
Summary: Bruce can't sleep, and JARVIS wants to play a game.


"Doctor Banner, welcome back to the lab, but I regret to inform you that your simulations will not be finished for another four hours."

"I know, JARVIS. I just…couldn't sleep." Bruce dragged himself to a low lab stool in the dim laboratory. His body was tired, but his mind was restless in the wake of nightmares. He scrubbed a hand through his hair, trying to think of something he could accomplish in a span of four hours.

He must have been taking longer than he thought to get started because Jarvis asked "Would you like to play a game?" A virtual chess board appeared on the table in front of Bruce. He smiled and the board shimmered through the color spectrum in response.

"No, I'm tired of losing to you." Bruce swept his hand through the chess board and the hologram flew into the trashcan against the wall.

"But you are learning quickly," JARVIS replied with an odd mixture of contempt and warmth.

Bruce slumped onto the table, resting his head on his arms. His forehead pressed into the cold stainless steel. The contrast helped settle his racing thoughts as his mind tried to render meaning from the fragments of dreams and order his anxiety into a more productive energy. Long, silent moments passed as he willed away the flecks of green in the perimeter of his vision.

"Would you like me to read you a bedtime story?" JARVIS asked tentatively.

Bruce laughed, and the sudden noise echoed in the empty whiteness of the lab. He startled slightly, then laughed again, softer this time.

"No, no but thank you for the offer. A game then," Bruce agreed, "but not chess."

"Very well. Trivia games should also be ruled out, as I have access to classified databases that you do not."

"Aww, JARVIS, didn't anybody tell you that Wikipedia is not a credible source?"

"The point still stands, Doctor Banner."

"I'll give you that one. How about Twenty Questions?"

"I am familiar with that game."

"Ok, JARVIS, tell me something about Tony."

"The conventional rules of Twenty Questions state that all questions must be answerable with a 'yes' or 'no.'"

"When did anyone around here start playing by conventional rules? Humor me, JARVIS."

"Mr. Stark is currently in his garage."

"I mean something about himas a person. Like, where did he go to school?"

"Mr. Stark graduated summa cum laude from MIT at the age of 17," JARVIS said as he projected an article about Tony's graduation and his accomplishment in building Dum-E. Bruce reached out and touched the small picture that accompanied the article, and JARVIS enlarged it for him. Tony looked shockingly young, crouched down by Dum-E's base, with a mop of dark hair falling in his thin face. He looked truly happy and proud in the picture, but Bruce felt strangely sad when he studied it.

"Ok. How about cars? Which one is his favorite?"

JARVIS brought up an episode of Top Gear featuring Tony from before the arc reactor. He looked the same but there was a careless grace to his carriage and a manic gleam to his eye that Bruce did not recognize. "The car he drives the most is the Audi R8," JARVIS summarized over a scene of Tony zipping along a curving outdoor track. JARVIS skipped the episode to a scene of Tony in his Malibu garage, showing off the pristine engine of a fiery hot-rod. "But, he feels the most emotional affinity to the 1932 Ford Flathead Roadster."

"That looks like the kind of car that sons and dads restore together in movies."

"Precisely, Doctor Banner."

"Oh." Bruce was a little taken aback. The image of Howard Stark teaching a young Tony the ins and outs of his first combustion engine was difficult to conjure. Tony rarely spoke about his father, at least around Bruce, except for the odd sarcastic comment. And those comments usually happened around Steve. But the more he pictured Tony and his father poking around a carburetor, the lighter he felt inside. He groped for another question. "Uh…how does he take his coffee?"

"Black, with three sugars."

Bruce chuckled. "It's not black if it has sugar in it."

"As I keep informing Mr. Stark, but he insists."

"What else does Tony insist on?"

The holographic display flickered to a TMZ report of Tony running nude through the fountains in Central Park, accompanied by a tall, squealing redhead that was most very definitely not Pepper, thank goodness.

"JARVIS, are you sure Tony wants you to share this?"

"Everything I have shown you thus far is public record."

"Even Tony's bare butt?"

"Especially that."

"Well I suppose I'm in good company then."

"Indeed, Doctor Banner."

"Ok, how about…what's his favorite song?"

JARVIS immediately projected a graph of Tony's most-listened to songs, organized by location in the tower. "If you prefer, I can arrange the data by date, time of day, or proximity to Ms. Potts."

Bruce smiled and got up to take a closer look at the colorful clusters of data. "How about his favorite movie?"

The graph was replaced with a collage of a dozen or so videos, all playing at once. Bruce caught a glimpse of everything from classics like Star Wars andThe Godfather, to The Wizard of Oz and Fight Club.

"Ah, thanks JARVIS, but turn it off. That's a little too much sensory input."

"My apologies, Doctor Banner," JARVIS said as the screens faded away.

"JARVIS…what else should I know about Tony?"

JARVIS remained silent for a long moment, so long that Bruce shifted uncomfortably, wondering if he could offend an AI. He was pretty sure he could, and started to apologize.

"Look, JARVIS, you don't have to—"

The room flared to life as he was surrounded by a 360 degree holographic display of Tony's life. There were newspaper articles, news reports, TV specials, press conferences, peer-reviewed papers, professional photo shoots, a riot of sound and light swirling around him. Bruce moved around the displays, watching for a moment at one and reading a paragraph or two at another. He saw articles about Tony's first engine and his other childhood accomplishments; there was his acceptance to MIT before he could even legally drive, and his graduation, then his apparent disappearance from academia and engineering. The articles were followed by arrest records and tabloid photos of a young Tony Stark wasted out of his mind. Bruce flipped through one or two, then swept them all into the virtual trash bin.

Bruce followed the layout of the projections around the room until he was at the hallway entrance. Floating in front of him was a news report of Howard and Maria Stark's death. The reporter droned on as a car burned in a little square in the corner of the screen. "Mute," Bruce said, and JARVIS obliged.

Bruce moved down the hallway, following magazine covers picturing Tony's return to the company and rise in the weapons industry and his torrid love affairs (though Bruce noticed Pepper started appearing somewhere in the background of the pictures on the society pages).

Eventually, Bruce came to news reports of Tony's kidnapping. This, he knew about, even when he was on the run with little access to the outside world. He would bet that the entire world knew when Tony Stark went missing. But it was different to see the news reports, to see Pepper falling apart under the camera when speaking about her boss's loss and return. Then came a video of a press conference. Tony, one arm in a sling, looking haggard and sick, cheeseburger firm in hand, asking everyone to just sit down and listen. And they all did.

Quite some time seemed to pass because in the next clip Tony looked better, stronger, but more worn around the edges, more like the Tony Stark Bruce was familiar with. The clip was from a different news conference and it was a loop of Tony saying one sentence, replaying over and over again: "I am Iron Man."

"I think you're proud of him for that moment, JARVIS."

JARVIS replied by lighting up the entire hallway wall with a hologram of the Stark Expo keynote address. Bruce had read about the Expo in Tony's file but seeing it in full three-dimensional color was jaw-dropping. He watched Iron Man drop out of the sky, and JARVIS peeling away the armor to reveal Tony in a striking tuxedo underneath.

"JARVIS, remind me to show this to Steve next time he's around," Bruce said when the dancers overtook the stage.

"Your reminder is set."

But then Bruce was captivated by Tony's keynote speech, his talk of phoenix metaphors and privatizing world peace. "Well, you certainly can strut," Bruce said quietly to the screen. "JARVIS, was Tony sick from the effects of the palladium by then?"

"I'm sorry Doctor Banner, but I do not have permission to answer that."

JARVIS had frozen the video on a close-up of Tony's face, spotlights reflecting in his dark eyes like starlight, and a billion-watt smile plastered on his face. Bruce polished his glasses and peered close at the faint blue lines creeping in right angles up his neck. They were just barely visible above the snug white collar, but they were there.

Bruce sighed deeply, centering himself as he pulled away from the video. He knew the rest from SHIELD's files and part of him wanted to stop now, to end the journey down the genius-billionaire-fuck-up rabbit hole. He swiped at the holograms in frustration. JARVIS, apparently, got the message because they shimmered and faded away like fairy dust.

"I'm sorry to distress you," JARVIS intoned politely. "Perhaps I have overstepped my bounds."

"No, don't apologize, JARVIS. I'm the one who asked the question."

"These are not secrets. It is all public record."

Bruce took off his glasses and cleaned them again on his shirt front, rubbing his eyes before putting them back on. "If this is all public record, then what does he have left? A man has to keep something to himself, don't you think? Living in a fishbowl is awful."

"I believe Mr. Stark has often used the analogy of the gilded cage," JARVIS replied.

Bruce shook himself out of his reverie and noticed where he was for the first time. His exploration of Tony's past had led him quite a distance down the hallway. He took two steps back towards his lab, but JARVIS said, "Doctor Banner, you still have more questions."

Bruce stopped in his tracks and considered his reply for a long moment. "Is there anything that I…well…need to know about Tony."

The elevator door at the nearest end of the hall pinged in response as the doors slid open. The bright fluorescent light of the elevator threw a beam of light down the hall to Bruce's feet.

Bruce got into the elevator and didn't think to question it when the button for the R&D garage lit up.

"Doctor Banner is requesting entrance," JARVIS announced as the elevator doors slid open—though Bruce noticed that JARVIS had already opened the glass doors all the way into the inner workshop.

"Let him in, JARVIS. Doesn't he have access? If not, give him access, like, yesterday."

"Doctor Banner now has full access to the garage." Bruce could swear he heard a wink.

Bruce's eyes swept the room, but he didn't see Tony until he said, "Hey, Big Guy, in the middle of important science?" Tony was sitting in the driver's seat of a perfect little hotrod up on blocks—Bruce didn't know about cars enough to tell make and model, but he would ask JARVIS later—a scotch in one hand and the other thrown across the back of the seat. He was staring at the wall, but as far as Bruce could see, there was only the dim, eerie reflection of the arc reactor.

"3am science? That's how walls get blown up around here."

"Hey man, some things can't wait 'till morning."

"No, no lab work tonight. JARVIS is playing a game with me."

"Yeah, who's winning?" Tony's grin looked genuine at the idea of his AI and his lab partner playing games together.

JARVIS's smooth voice said, "Doctor Banner walked right into my trap, but I predict he will have my king in three moves."

Bruce's eyes widened, but he managed to hide his surprise at JARVIS's lie. But then Tony looked at Bruce hard, as if he heard something in JARVIS's dry voice that Bruce did not, and he wondered if JARVIS had been playing a different game all along.

"Good, game over then. Come watch something with me. We've got our own personal drive-in. What's your favorite movie?"

Bruce sidled up to the passenger's side. He tried to jump over the door into the seat, but he didn't lift his hip up far enough, and he tumbled rather gracelessly over the edge and halfway into Tony's lap. Tony laughed, and instead of helping Bruce up, he let his arm fall from the back of the seat to wrap around Bruce's shoulder. "Careful, rage monster. Don't hurt yourself."

Bruce laughed, too. "You make it look so easy!"

"I make everything look easy."

But, from his vantage point pressed close to Tony's shoulder and looking up into his face, Bruce could see the hollowness of his eyes, and the chalky pallor to his face. He could hear the ice clink softly from tremors in Tony's hand as he lifted the glass to drink. Bruce pulled his legs inside the car and sat up. He noted the blanket Tony had wrapped around his shoulders, the pillows stuffed behind his back, and the half-empty bottle of scotch on the floorboard; he was settled in for a long night.

"So choose a movie," Tony said, still staring at a blank wall. He unwrapped the blanket from around his shoulders and draped it across their laps, then fished a pillow from the side of the seat and passed it to Bruce.

Bruce thought for a moment. "Enter the Dragon."

"You heard the man, JARVIS. Roll it!"

"It would be my pleasure, sir."


End file.
